U.S. Jews' unity on Israel shows cracks

Concerns spread over occupation, reaction to unrest

July 06, 2001|By Alice Sparberg Alexiou, Religion News Service.

NEW YORK — When an estimated 10,000 American Jews gathered to show their support for Israel two days after 21 Israelis died in a suicide bombing at a Tel Aviv nightclub, Rabbi Rolando Matalon was not among the demonstrators.

Matalon, spiritual leader of a politically conscious and vibrant New York congregation, said he shunned last month's "solidarity rally" despite his love for Israel because the unity that the organizers had touted simply does not exist within the American Jewish community.

For a Jewish leader to assert that American Jews do not fully back Israel during a time of crisis verges on the profane, many believe. Indeed, Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun magazine and a recently vocal critic of Israel, has been receiving death threats over the past two months for his views.

Differing opinions are nothing new, but what is striking now is that unease over the continued Israeli presence in the territories--coupled with what many consider an excessive use of Israeli force against the Palestinians--is spreading in the Jewish community, Matalon said.

"People are disturbed by Israel's expansion of settlements, by the level of violence by Israel that is sometimes seen as provocation," Matalon said. "They wonder whether the limit of `self-defense' has been crossed."

Matalon stressed that Jews still stand with Israel at a time when disillusionment over the breakdown of the peace process is compounded by anger at Palestinian terrorist attacks. But despite the Jewish community's revulsion over acts like the Tel Aviv bombing, he said, people in his congregation are very ambivalent, very troubled.

All of this contradicts the popular picture of Jewish unity.

"The notion that there is revulsion in the mainstream liberal community against the Sharon government is wrong," said Rabbi Eric Yoffie, head of the Reform movement. "But what's correct is that there is revulsion against Arafat, in that he is not prepared to make peace."

Still, in a recent speech to Reform leaders, Yoffie called on Israel to freeze all settlements. He even criticized "acts of degradation and cruelty" tied to the occupation, accusing Israel of sometimes demonizing its enemies--criticisms that no leader of a major Jewish organization has ever publicly made before.

After making those remarks, Yoffie quickly retreated, reminding his audience that "the primary burden falls on Arafat's shoulders." And ambivalence toward Israel, Yoffie said later in a phone interview, comes from "the fringes," not from the mainstream.

The small activist Jewish groups who have long protested what they consider the illegal Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem lately have come together and gathered steam.

On April 8, the first day of Passover, The New York Times ran a full-page ad signed by some 700 people in "The Olive Trees for Peace Campaign," which aims to replant olive trees that peace activists say have been destroyed by Israeli soldiers and settlers. Rabbi Arthur Waskow, director of the Shalom Center in Philadelphia and one of the campaign organizers, said that the campaign has so far raised more than $100,000.

Some peace groups take more militant stands regarding what they view as Israeli aggression toward Palestinians. Stanford University history professor Joel Beinin, a specialist in the history of the modern Middle East and a member of the Bay Area group Jewish Voice for Peace, said his group was even calling for the suspension of American military aid to Israel.

Another peace movement, Women in Black, which started in Jerusalem in 1988 and now has another branch in Serbia, has been staging demonstrations in 150 cities around the world, calling for an end to Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Organizers estimated that 3,000 people participated in the Jerusalem rally.

Reform Rabbi Bruce Bloch of New Jersey, who helped organize the June 3 solidarity rally in New York, said groups like Women in Black were closing their eyes to part of the story.

Conservative Rabbi Harlan Wechsler, another rally organizer, was more critical of peace activists. Jews who see Israel's actions as anything other than self-defense, he said, are committing "a grave moral error."

Steven Solender, president of United Jewish Communities, an umbrella organization for 189 Jewish federations in North America, was more accepting of the dissenters. "The Jewish community has diverse points of view, and we need to be respectful," he said.